


excuse me if i spoke too soon...

by abyssalSympathy



Series: ValhallaBound 'verse-merge [7]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Getting Together, Ladystuck, Pining, SBURB Fan Session, Sisters, am i allowed to tag this as, but it could serve as a nice entry point for you ohoho, but that bit is for cetus, i gotcha covered, it's a bit more complicated than that but isn't homestuck always like that, kind of, looking for some of that good good wlw pining?, pov is void aspect, sorry for the tags yall, sorry if it's a bit prosey, we stan one supportive twin sister!, you don't have to have read the rest of the series to read this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 04:05:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19455991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abyssalSympathy/pseuds/abyssalSympathy
Summary: (...my eyes have always followed you around the room.)Nyx Inanitas adjusts to her new normal in the Medium.





	excuse me if i spoke too soon...

**Author's Note:**

> hey y'all! it's been a while since any of yall have heard from me, huh. i'm putting up some of the backstory i've had written for a while, because it sure doesn't make sense for me to hoard it all to myself!
> 
> this one kinda piggybacks off of ink and synapse, the previous work in the series, though i wrote this one so that you don't have to have read any of the series to read this! it does offer a little context for the pov character and her crush's relationship tho. up to you!

It’s dark here. Darker than your room ever could get, in the gloom of Sable’s nightscape. The stars are distant, formless, nigh-existent. You’re not sure if they’re there at all. The thought is terrifying. A tidal wave of nothingness crashes before you. This canvas is something you cannot paint at all.

Your eyes are heavy. The day has been long, in the chaos of the upheaval and the running, frying pan to fire. You feel jaded already somehow. It’s only been a few hours.

The loose association of your group - called Skaianet after your now-dead home planet - fell apart rather quickly. The two former princes with their prickly edges made sure of that tension. For years you were sure nothing could have torn them apart. But that was before anonymity ended, before the veil was cast down and you all started wearing your real faces to talk. The transition was easier on some of you, who had nothing better to hide. But Typheus and Janus, inheritors of their parents’ war? You frown thinking about it even now.

You feel lucky that there was never that kind of break between you and Mnemosyne. You met the real her before you met 4th3n3 or grixisAvantgarde. You knew her when you were just a short-haired little watercolor painter and when she was an isolated jailbird of her father’s cells. You remember that slow evolution of her eyes, the dead and hostile going brighter the more ink she put in her skin, the more metal ringing her flesh, the more code she wove into sweet rebellious being. You had been brought before her eyes before any of the others so much as knew her handle. You had been blessed.

And then you had to go and curse yourself with that _wanting,_ that secret jealousness that plagued you in the group chats when her bright green spun for anyone other than you. It’s a pox you brought on yourself. That lacerating dark. The sick smell of the only oil you could find rich enough to bring out the honey of her skin. (You never told her that you painted her, never. She would think you obsessed. Truthfully, you are.)

The black skyscape of this medium reaches too deep into your thoughts, dredges up too much pain. Your exhaustion is what pulls you back into the fabricated halls of the meteor-laboratory searching for a place to sleep. Nothing here has been given color. Not even the walls.

In your half-asleep stupor you barely see her coming. Just a bright green haze at the edge of your vision followed by a sudden ochre eclipse.

“Wh-”

You don’t process that you’ve bumped into her until she steps back and you almost fall flat on your face. “Sorry about that, ahah,” Mnemosyne says softly, with a gentle flash of bright teeth, and carries on her way. You just stay there, thoughts running slow as dry-brush paint.

Suddenly, your sister in arms pulls you away and into a room. “I snagged this one for us,” she declares triumphantly. “Now sleep.”

“Cet,” you protest briefly. Bright strawberry blonde shakes at you.

“Nope. You look like you’re dead, sis. There is no way you’re gonna make a good impression on Mnem if you’re a zombie.”

That perks you up a bit. Cetus is the only one you’ve fessed up to about your crush. She’s the only one you knew you could trust with it: as much as Heph would offer his quiet support and Hygeria would fawn over the idea of Mnem being close to you, the former has no idea of what a straight face is and the latter couldn’t have looser lips than if they were sewn on by your drug-addled mother.

“We can talk about your big sapphic confession later,” Cetus presses. “Sleep and get your head back on forwards, Nyx.”

“That expression barely makes sense,” you mumble as you stagger over to the stark grey mattress. You have no idea where your bond-sister even found the thing - you’ve all barely gotten here in one piece.

And yet, despite your protests, you’re gone the moment you hit the bed.

(You dream in black first, lapsed in bubble-film iridescence. It ends, as it always does, in sweet honeyed mahogany and green.)

You groan as you wake. Stupid things always happen when you’re tired. Of course you had to go and embarrass yourself in front of your crush.

Your sister stirs next to you as you sit up. “Did I seriously just- did I really smack right into her,” you ask, voice flat and foggy from sleep.

Cetus snorts. “Nyx, you useless lesbian. You ran straight into her fucking chest and didn't even bother taking advantage of it. Nice job.”

“Aughhhh.”

“Surprised _that’s_ the first thing you ask, considering everything that happened yesterday.” Her bright sunburst eyes dance in the faint light of the template building, piercing as spotlights staring up at your face. “Actually, I’m not surprised,” she reconsiders. “You’re really gay for her, man.”

You almost keel over as your face flushes. Instead you just kinda crumple into a ball, like too much discarded paper. “I can’t do this, Cet.”

“Can’t do what?”

“Like, I know I can’t just pretend nothing is up for however long we’re gonna be here. But if I tell her-”

“Then you’ll date and be hella gay,” she cuts in, as if she’d preordained your relationship and set it in immovable granite.

“But-” There are so many things that could go wrong. You could say something weird and then Mnemosyne would hate you forever, let alone asking her out in the first place without earning the ire she reserves only for the Prospitian and Dersite governments and Lachesis. Your brain has a million ideas, a million scenes set, and in each and every instance you screw up. Every scene ends in electric teal shock and lashing ivory hair, in cold metal and a heel turn, the sting of a slap on your face not quite worse than the million daggers sunk into your heart.

“Hey.” Your sister’s voice slices open your daymare, drags you by your hands back to the dark argent walls surrounding you and a flashbulb smile at your side. “It’s okay to think about stuff that could go bad so you’re prepared, but you gotta remember that good things can happen too. And hey-” she pulls you into a tight hug- “no matter what, you _always_ got me. Okay?”

“Mm.” You lean into Cetus’s arms. (It’s still so new, being able to actually touch your sister. For so long it was just orange words, funny selfies, and the fading dark of your corner bedroom. But somehow her touch goes so much further than any synthetic smile ever could. It’s something you could too easily get used to.)

A bit later you manage to pick your way out of the room to what you assume is the communal area of the laboratory-place you all have spontaneously taken up residence in. A few others are hanging out, but you see Mnemosyne immediately, working intently at something on her computer. (She must have transplanted the thing from her home overnight. Who knows how much gate-hopping she had to do?) Briefly you consider trying to say hi, but then you remember last night. It doesn’t take long to change your mind after that.

The air shifts. Mnemosyne at her laboratory-master’s seat sighs aloud and runs a hand through her thick silvery hair.

The prince of Prospit himself speaks up from another chair, unguarded only to those hailing from his father’s lands. “What is it?”

“Trying to put something in place to let us generate matter. We don’t know how long everyone’s food is gonna keep, so-” she shrugs- “might as well get this put in place before we start to really need it. I think I’m close, should be able to test it within the day.”

“That’s very pragmatic of you,” Typheus compliments, some leftover nationalistic pride evident in his voice.

“Huh, wonder why I did it.” Her reply hangs in the air and crackles with barely-perceptible ire. You know she hated the idea of Typheus as much as most Prospitians hated the idea of Janus and his imperial mother, so it doesn’t surprise you that she replies so coldly, but it seems to catch the boy off guard. He frowns inwardly and nods. You’ve never truly been witness to her verbal barbs, but they in no way disappoint. Over the internet, you were only given glimpses. Passionate sentences in phthalo green and static-filled cracks drew you in, sure enough. You thought you were hopeless then.

But in real life she commands this energy, this unknowable force, all Mnemosyne, that threatens to boil you alive in your skin.

It occurs to you that you’re staring.

“I’m heading home for a sec to grab some more stuff. Nyx, do you want to come?” Shit, she’s spotted you. Ice winds through your veins.

“I, uh, don’t think I’d be all that helpful,” you reply quickly, staring off at the opposite wall.

Mnemosyne stops for a moment, lips just slightly parted. “Oh- okay. Heph, you wanna?”

“S’not like I got anything better to do,” your fellow Dersite replies with a roll of his bony shoulders. You can hear the two depart as you stare the other way. The room becomes so quiet that you can hear the wayward prince breathe, the soft sound laced in confusion.

Looking around, you see an unblended color palette scraped out onto the laboratory’s unforgiving gray. Everyone’s too uncomfortable, even in the aftermath of what should have tied you all even closer together. In your flight from dying Skaia, you traded warring countries for petty princes unwilling to forgive and forget. Typheus and Janus, casting each other as the oil to their water.

Speaking of the latter, you watch the boy as he enters, sullen and exhausted. There’s _something_ about his skin that suggests it wasn’t quite painted on the right way, though you can’t really place what it is. He sits near to you, all the way across the room but in perfect sight of his former closest friend. You know the look in his eyes. You feel it too.

You think of leading him away, of gently speaking to him. You think of confessing about your crush to him. You think of reminding him which lines that would cross. You think of telling him what everyone but the poor star-crossed lovers of Skaianet already knew, resigned to hatred before they could even realize that they would have been reciprocated.

You don’t. You’re unsure which Janus would respond - the flamboyant and vindictive or the sullen and submissive. It’s not your battle to fight anyway. What appear as simple borders to you and Mnemosyne are much more akin to walls for the two of them.

Days begin to pass by in an unsteady rhythm. The time you’re on the laboratory-planet you spend dancing around Mnemosyne, finding excuses not to talk to her as she tries to pull everyone back together. (Skaianet was all she had back on your home planet. It’s doubtless she sees them all as her own haphazardly-built family - what child wouldn’t try to get mom and dad to reconcile?) You canvass the blank canvases of the player-planets in gate-hopping with any few of your friends at a time, visiting where they came from. Once, Cetus and Nemesis together helped you carry some of your art supplies from your uprooted apartment back to the lab. (You pretended not to notice their flirting.)

You feel empty and full to bursting all at the same time. It’s agony. But you’ve lived with it for years now. If you’ve been able to tolerate it this long, you can tolerate it for whatever eternity you spend in this empty starscape. Staring into the dark, just as you did the day you all came here.

You don’t hear her come up behind you in your melancholic reverie. As she leans her chestnut arms onto the railing beside you, you startle.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” she says, smiling gently.

“It’s- it’s nothing, don’t worry.” Hot anxiety burns up your throat.

“How are you doing?” she asks hopefully. “We haven’t gotten a chance to _really_ talk in a while. I know I've been busy with making sure we can, y'know, _survive_ out here, but that doesn't excuse me from neglecting my friends.”

“I’m fine.” You worry at your fingers. Usually there’s paint there that you can pick off, but despite the easel sitting in the corner of your shared room, you haven’t painted since you arrived.

Silence sits high in the infinite void. Mnemosyne stares into your eyes, obviously expecting more. Your voice won’t come back to you, and she notices.

“What’s wrong?” Genuine concern is inscribed in every fold of her furrowed brow. Her eyes seem like twin stars set in the heavens so far from you, so far from such a lowly mortal like you. How could you even deign to reach for them? It’s hopeless anyway, it’s all hopeless, you can’t do this.

“I- uh-” You’re stammering like a damn idiot, half-formed tears burning holes out of your eyes. Your hands wring desperately.

“Whatever’s going on-” she takes a step closer, hands reaching for you in gentle placation- “I’m here for you. No matter what it is.” Her voice is steady and soft even as she still approaches lowly, profane, disgusting you. You need to stop her, stop her before she gets too close, end this before she can find out herself.

“I- um- I think I’m in love with you.” The words slip your lips like traitors, like a jailbreak, freezing Mnemosyne in her tracks as if your voice had been enough to stab her. You go white-knuckled. Suddenly you can’t look at her face, her eyes, those pointed green stars, that perfect view of the heavens - traded for the dismal earthly grey of the laboratory pavement. You become only too aware of the silence left behind; your thoughts get louder in compensation.

Even now, you’re lying to her. There is no room for an “I think” - your feelings are too definite for that. Too grounded in the feeling of being alone in the dark, of finally having someone, anyone, to speak to, of wanting everything in the world for her. Your eyes screw shut.

You wanted all the world condensed to a single canvas, if only to show her what her father wouldn’t let her see. You wanted all her beauty and talent condensed to a single brushstroke, if only to show her what she couldn’t understand about herself. You wanted all your love in a drop of paint, if only to tell her the words you couldn’t bring yourself to say.

Warmth enfolds you by stages.

“I thought you hated me,” she sighs into your hair. “I was trying to figure out what I did to make you feel so uncomfortable, but…” You’re such an idiot. You were so caught up in avoiding the cause of your uncertainties that you never took her feelings into account.

“I’m _sorry_ ,” you choke.

“Don’t. Please.” Her grip on you tightens. You look up into perfect teal irises. 

“It’s okay if you’re- not comfortable talking to me anymore, if I were you I wouldn’t want to talk to me either-”

“Nyx, I really don’t hate you.” It can’t be true, this isn’t what _you_ get, this is never what you’re given.

“ _Why?_ ” you plead.

“Do I really need to spell it out for you?” There’s a hopeless look on her face and a twist to her brow that you’ve never seen before. You’re so confused that it actually pulls you down just slightly from the tight storm of anxiety you worried yourself into.

Her breath is warm next to your lips. It’s an invitation you’re almost too frightened to take. Your mind insists still that this is an unreality, a figment, that no one like her would ever willingly get close to someone like you.

Almost floating away, you lean in.

Her kiss could not be sweeter than the music of all the celestial bodies turning in the heavens. Your veins turn to ambrosia from the touch and the heat, honeyspun-rich in the image of the light beneath her skin.

“Does that answer your question?” Mnemosyne whispers, low enough for only you to hear. You don’t answer - heart in your throat and stars burning beneath your skin from just how impossible this all seems.

You stagger a step back, hand covering your mouth. “I have to be- I’m dreaming, you wouldn’t really-”

“What if I would?” she teases gently. You don’t resist when she embraces you again, holding onto life dearest. “Nyx, how long have you been…?”

“Since the moment I saw you.”

She huffs. “You could have told me a bit sooner.”

She can’t see it, but you grimace slightly. “Are you really sure you would have…?” The sound of her laughter fills your ears.

“You’re the reason why I’m still here today. Why wouldn’t I feel a little affection, with all you’ve done for me?”

The two of you stand there for eternities. It doesn’t matter to you how long it is. She’s warm and for some strange reason she loves you. In your mind’s eye, you can see the image of it, deep oceanic blue pressed against bright teal green, framed by the starscape of a universe you could perhaps make your own.

You hum softly in confusion as she finally lets go and steps back.

“Y’know, I did mean it when I said I wanted to talk about stuff. But…” Mnemosyne stares out into the empty heavens. (For a moment, you think the mere image of her could form galaxies.) “It’s kinda gloomy out here, isn’t it?”

You shrug apologetically. “Kinda.”

“Come back to my room with me.” She smiles and it is as if the crescent moon made a home between her lips.

You nod and she takes your hand, leading you off toward a brighter future.

**Author's Note:**

> the lyrics i used to title and start the summary of the fic are from "if i had a gun" by noel gallagher. it's such a good pining song lads
> 
> if you liked this fic, feel free to [join our discord server!](https://discord.gg/Mehbr5q) arcane and i love answering questions and we'd be super jazzed to have you!


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